A prospective study was performed on elective neurosurgical office referrals to one neurosurgeon at the Toronto Hospital from September 1988 to May 1996. Patient level of information was tested using the chisquare test on the study population of 2,017 patients grouped according to the type of referring doctor and regional category of diagnosis. There was a statistically significant difference in the degree of knowledge of referred patients according to the type of referring doctor (p